Category Archives: Blog

David Longstreth shares three-song suite, ‘At Home’, ‘Circled in Purple’ and ‘Our Green Garden’

27 February 2025

Last month, producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter David Longstreth announced the release of Song of the Earth, a song cycle for orchestra and voices performed by him with his band Dirty Projectors and Berlin-based experimental ensemble s t a r g a z e, and conducted by André de Ridder. The forthcoming Song of the Earth features a stellar cast of guest contributors including Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Steve Lacy, Patrick Shiroishi, Anastasia Coope, Tim Bernardes, Ayoni, Portraits of Tracy, and it also includes words by journalist David Wallace-Wells.

Following ‘Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One’, Longstreth is teasing the album again with a three-song suite from the album, ‘At Home’, ‘Circled in Purple’ and ‘Our Green Garden’. Of the suite, he says:

“Past reports of Dirty Projectors going full prog are greatly exaggerated; until now I’ve never released an album with a straight-up suite of songs. As the slashes in the title imply, this is a three-song suite. It’s just the way it happened. Consider it an entry in your ‘A Day in the Life’ / ‘Paranoid Android’ / ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ / ‘Sicko Mode’ category: a sprawling journey that feels like slipping into a dream. A kaleidoscopic river-of-consciousness.”

The suite is offered with an accompanying lyric video and you can watch it below.

Song of the Earth is out on April 4th through Transgressive Records (UK) and Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Records.

Violeta García & Hora Lunga team up for collaborative album, I’ll Wait For You In The Car Park

26 February 2025
Violeta García & Hora Lunga

Photo: Victoria Papagni

Last month, Violeta García announced the release of her new solo album IN / OUT. The Argentina-born, Spain-based cellist, composer and curator is on a roll as of late, as she has another exciting release on the horizon that has piqued our interest, this time a collaboration with Swiss musician and composer Hora Lunga. Entitled I’ll Wait For You In The Car Park, it marks their first joint album and is set for release on April 25th through -OUS. The album was birthed after the two met in 2023 and the exchange of sketches and demos developed spontaneously from there. They bounced ideas off each other between South America and Europe, leading to several studio sessions in 2024. “We made most of the decisions impulsively without much questioning. That takes a lot of trust,” says García. Described as a “work of extremes”, on the upcoming I’ll Wait For You In The Car Park both artist’s ideas mix together and complement each other. They unravel fragments of everyday life through musical layers laced with field recordings and audio notes they gathered throughout the year.

Conjuring both a sense of unease and hope, the enveloping ‘i think i just died a lil bit’ is the first single to emerge from the album and you can listen to it below.

Erlend Apneseth announces new LP, Song over Støv, and shares first single ‘Spring’

25 February 2025

Photo: Signe Fuglesteg Luksengard

Composer, bandleader and master of the Hardanger fiddle Erlend Apneseth is one of Norways’s leading folk musicians. The recipient of numerous awards, Apneseth boasts an incredibly diverse CV that includes numerous collaborations and critically acclaimed albums with his trio and also his own solo projects. He has announced the release of his new album Song over Støv [Song over dust], whose “title reflects a dialogue between past and present, both personally and musically.” Initially conceived as part of a commission for Oslo World and Riksscenen in 2023, the project weaves together elements of folk music, jazz, and contemporary music, whilst also keeping its connection to the Hardanger fiddle tradition.

To bring Song over Støv to life, Apneseth enlisted a cast of outstanding Norwegian musicians, including Mats Eilertsen, Hans Hulbækmo, Veslemøy Narvesen, Selma French Bolstad, Helga Myhr, Rasmus Kjorstad, Henriette Eilertsen, Anja Lauvdal, Rolf-Erik Nystrøm, and Frode Haltli. Apneseth comments:

“What’s important to me is that the musicians feel a sense of ownership over the music, that they feel integrated into it and are able to express themselves in their own way. So, I tend to compose more for musical personalities than for instruments in a traditional sense—people who I believe will discover something in the music I bring to them.”

Speaking about his idea to write for a larger group of fiddles, he says:

“Fiddles tend to get a bit drowned out in larger ensembles, so it was really refreshing to have three more on “my” team. With a quartet of Hardanger fiddles in the band, I’ve also felt more comfortable including more specific elements from tradition than before —like ornamentation and various springar rhythms— because I know they’ll come through clearly. I really enjoy unison playing and allowing things to repeat over time, which might stem from my own background.”

Song over Støv will see the light of day on April 4th through Hubro but we can already hear the radiant and absolutely beautiful first single ‘Spring’. Of the track, Apneseth says:

“The track is based on a traditional ‘springar’ rhythm, which the title reflects. At the same time, the music has a youthful and fresh quality, much like the feeling of spring finally arriving after the long winter here where I live. In this band, there are three Hardanger fiddles in addition to my own, and this is one of the tracks where the instrument truly gets to shine.”

Listen to ‘Spring’ now.

Joan Arnau Pàmies set to release new album, Guidelines/Fonaments, in April

24 February 2025

Photo: Iolanda Sebé

Born in Catalonia, and raised in Boston and Chicago before returning to Catalonia, Joan Arnau Pàmies is a composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist with a vast and diverse work that includes live electronics, acoustic instruments, atypical forms of music notation, electroacoustic pieces, and free improvisation. His 15-year career encompasses a huge range of music; from classical and modern music to jazz, from glitch to avant-garde pop, setting himself apart as a versatile musician who eschews genre conventions in favour of cultivating his own voice through a liberating musical space.

Pàmies has announced the release of his new album Guidelines/Fonaments, a deeply personal and genre-defying record that expands his own sonic explorations and blurs the lines between solo piano music, ambient, contemporary classical music, and free improvisation. “It is an intensely personal exploration, inviting listeners into a meditative state to reflect on the synthesis of diverse sound worlds and experience yet-to-be-known aesthetic perspectives,” Pàmies reveals this insight. He continues:

“The album’s title, Guidelines/Fonaments, reflects the principles I’ve developed since returning to Catalonia—foundations for what I see as a groundbreaking evolution of my aesthetic. The bilingual title—in English and Catalan—is deeply personal, a reflection of my own life (my wife is American and my kids are dual citizens), and a metaphor meant to express how I see music: a historical product in constant struggle between past traditions and present aesthetic concerns. The pieces that form this record are my “guidelines” as well as my “foundations”: they present ideas that have been important to me for many years but also show new principles upon which to create future music.”

In his commitment to exploring his own creativity and reflecting his vision on the album, Pàmies performed, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered Guidelines/Fonaments himself, over the course of four years, in various places.

Preceding the album release on April 4th through his own Protomaterial Records, he has shared two singles, ‘Esperança’, which means hope, featuring guest vocals from his former student Martina Perpinyà, and ‘Pes’. Of the latter, Pàmies says:

“In Catalan, “pes” means weight. I think of this as an apparently simple piece of music, similarly to the famous prelude in C Major by J.S.Bach of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The weight here refers to the importance of harmony as a grounding element of music.”

Immediately enthralling, both tracks display the boundless scope of the upcoming Guidelines/Fonaments. Take a listen below.


Malmin and Åshild Vetrhus’ collaborative album out in March

21 February 2025

March 7th will see the release of Malmin with Åshild Vetrhus, an enchanting album of Norwegian folk songs that should be on everyone’s radar. The album sprouted from a collaboration between Malmin, the core duo of Anders Hana and Olav Christer Rossebø, and singer Åshild Vetrhus, “in their mission to unearth the raw untamed folk music of Rogaland region in Norway”. Malmin with Åshild Vetrhus also marks the very first release on new record label Krets.
Across the 9 songs of the album, there’s a variety of contexts and functions the music is used for, as the press release describes, including “music for work, for making love, for remedy and repenting and music for dying”.

Malmin also shared some insight into the recording process:

“In Malmin, we always start by studying the early recordings of the oldest sources. These recordings are packed with information and are often surprisingly open for interpretation. While we preserve as many old tropes as possible, we take great liberty in coloring the instruments with amplification. We hear how the colors of new technology keep the old styles mighty and strong. In hearing the source material with modern ears, we unwillingly tend to project the music of our times on the tradition. With Malmin, we work towards the opposite, by projecting the tradition, as pure as possible, on modernity.”

For a taster of what’s on offer, here’s the magical and moving opening piece, ‘Springar from Svein P. Eikeland/Tveitaslåtten/Når mitt øie trett av møie’.

Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson & Sam Wilkes share second single, ‘Arpy’

20 February 2025

Photo: Roman Koval

Guitarist Gregory Uhlmann, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and bassist Sam Wilkes, who are some of most daring and brilliant musicians of the LA new jazz scene, have recently joined forces for a new chamber trio. They had previously announced the release of a debut collaborative album, Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes, and shared then the immersive and enthralling ‘Frica’, which instantly got us under their spell. Ahead of the album’s release on March 14th through International Anthem, they are teasing it again with new single ‘Arpy’, an utterly engrossing, emotive and atmospheric track. Take a listen now.